Monsters in the cave
by Hemachatus
Summary: A story inspired by H.P. Lovecraft.  Beta reader: Skein.


It happened on a rainy night in 19** when I and my son were driving on the muddy roads of D*** trying to escape total darkness which had already fallen upon this forsaken town. The rain drummed furiously against the windshield and the sky hid beyond lingering clouds. We felt vague fear and uneasiness as if we were the last human beings left in the whole world.

In half an hour our car sputtered out and we were left alone at the mercy of raging nature. The wind – wrathful herald of ancient gods – struggled to smash car windows in and seeped into saloon. So, I decided that it could be hazardous to stay in the car. We got out, wrapped ourselves up in coats and moved forward searching for shelter. Alas, merciful gods turned away from us: there were no-one, not a living soul on lonely streets of D***, not a single light…and ramshackle buildings couldn`t serve us a decent lodging. Nonetheless, amid torrents of rainwater my son Spike spied a small cave not far away, just in the west outskirts of town. In flashes of lightning the cave entrance appeared as a maw of an unknown animal, but then and there we thought it could serve us a temporary refuge. So we threaded our way through the forest directly to the slope where the cave gaped.

Water trickled down the collar, twigs cracked under our feet and we feared to fall down some cursed hole. But lightning illuminated our arduous path.

Soon we reached our destination: having braved the slope and soiled our clothes we were at the cave mouth.

Spike turned the lantern on to light our ungracious haven; shadows on stony walls morphed into prehistoric beasts and I was overwhelmed with helplessness and loneliness again, as if I was all alone in this cave, in the world, in the whole giant cold universe.

Suddenly my son cried out and I saw a door in the back of the cave! Fear froze my limbs numb. It was a giant door of rusty-gold metal made by no human hands! Its tremendous size and mystical symbols on its incredibly fine polished surface evoked thoughts of unbelievable creatures which could still be hidden behind it and – what was even more troubling — which could create this very door…

Spike was already touching the horrible slab, when I cried out to him not to touch it, keep away from this mysterious door, but… too late. As if it felt the warmth of human hands, the polished surface rippled a little, and strings of colored lights ran along quaint symbols. To my utter fear the door unfolded — though I could have attested the solidity of this enigmatic artifact.

Dampness breathed from beyond the opened portal and we saw more pitch-dark gloom, though it seemed that the darkness had swallowed the whole Earth already. We stumbled upon something supernatural, something unspeakably horrible, something unnamable…

- Let`s go in and see what`s inside! – suggested Spike. I looked at him intently; it seemed that for him it was just a funny adventure.

But I was too scared to react in time and came to my senses only when my son has already disappeared into gloomy darkness.

I understood that now was time for me to pass the border between worlds, where the law of common sense and logic ceased to work, and get into a world full of nameless terrors, but I was so afraid for Spike that I couldn`t turn away and leave. The murky low sky seemed to goad me on…and I came in…

Dr. Craftlove sat back and made a couple of notes. Then he observed carefully the patient before him and shook his head. Sparkplug Witwicky was admitted to the mental hospital a fortnight ago and kept re-telling this shocking story, day after day.

"You don't believe me, doctor…"

"Well, I do…"

"Oh no, you don`t…"

"Sparkplug," – said Craftlove amicably and took his patient`s hand. – "I wish I could believe you, but we haven`t found anything. We sent a volunteer search party to find this mysterious, so-called "alien spaceship". But there isn't anything in the cave!"

"That`s because they went into hiding! Oh, they know what to do… they are dangerous, fast, deadly creatures! They change their forms and can move on their hands or feet, on ground or even in the sky! They are here! And they are WAITING!

Dr. Craftlove called a nurse for a tranquilizer injection. Sparkplug lay back, weak-willed. Why can`t they just understand…

THEY are here…

In his thoughts, he returned to that horrible night, into that gigantic echoing corridor behind the huge door, lit by crystals of unearthly origin. Scared, the man went forward calling for his son. Finally the corridor came to another door, already opened. Sparkplug came in and saw right away his son, Spike, running back to him. His son's face was twisted by fear, he was screaming out something and waving his hands, but Sparkplug stopped dead in his tracks — watching monstrous creatures as they materialized in the deep of the room and how the darkness began flashing with unearthly, infernal, cold eyes. He heard horrifying noise of their footsteps, unearthly groans of their unnatural limbs, felt their insufferable smell…monsters in the cave…

Sparkplug grabbed his son and dashed outside — escaping back to the world of living.

…But till this day, in every dream, every waking minute he keeps hearing that horrifying voice from the depth of space abyss, from another, alien world, mechanical and transcendent, unbearable and blasphemous, mangling our human language, booming under the immense vault of the cave — "I am Optimus Prime!"


End file.
